1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to the field of data processing systems having an audio user interface and is applicable to electronic commerce. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate generally to the generation of markup language applications for a voice interface process.
2. Related Art
As computer systems and telephone networks modernize, it has become commercially feasible to provide information to users or subscribers over a voice interface, e.g., telephone and other audio networks and systems. These services allow users, i.e., “callers,” to interface with a computer system for receiving and entering information. As used herein, “caller” refers generically to any user interacting over an voice interface, whether via telephone or otherwise.
A number of these types of phone services utilize computer implemented automatic voice recognition tools (e.g., automated speech recognition systems) to allow a computer system to understand and react to a caller's spoken commands and information. This has proven to be an effective mechanism for providing information since telephone systems are ubiquitous, familiar to most people and relatively easy to use, understand and operate. When connected, the caller listens to information and prompts provided by the service and can speak to the service giving it commands and other information, thus forming a voice interface.
Additionally, these phone services can be integrated within the world wide web (e.g., Internet) to move audio data efficiently across the web to a telephonic user. More and more web devices will be developed to take advantage of the internet infrastructure for providing information data. In particular, voice can be used to interface with these phone services.
The phone service via a voice interface performs some task as requested or commanded by the user of the voice interface (e.g., information retrieval, electronic commerce, voice dialing, etc.). Once the task is understood and an overall process is outlined for accomplishing the task, a computer implemented application is written that provides the instructions necessary for allowing the user to interact with the voice interface to accomplish the task.
In particular, instructions for implementing the process can be written in the Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML). The VXML language is a web-based markup language for representing human to computer dialogs, and is analogous to the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). The VXML language interacts with a voice browser that outputs audio that is either recorded or computer generated. Also, the VXML language assumes that input through voice or telephone pad is provided as audio input. Additionally, VXML as a high-level, domain-specific markup language is currently being proposed to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as the standard language for voice applications over the voice web marketplace.
Creating the particular VXML application for a particular phone service can be particularly time consuming and an inefficient use of human resources once the actual coding process begins. To create the VXML application, the process includes creating the design documents that outline the overall voice interface process as envisioned by the customer and the voice application developer. Next, the voice application is coded by hand in VXML from the design documentation to provide the instructions necessary for the user to interact with a phone service using the voice interface through a network.
Typically, a software developer is assigned the task of coding each of the various steps required in the voice interface process. At times, this becomes a redundant exercise as many sequences of instructions and various parts of the coded instructions are repeatedly used throughout the final coded voice application. Furthermore, as the voice interface process becomes more the amount of repetition and the chance for error in writing the code increases.
Moreover, once the VXML application is completed, additional documentation may be provided to the phone service in support of the voice application. Usually this additional documentation provides for further representations of the VXML application in a coded format (e.g., a web based representation of the voice interface process). However, additional time and resources are necessary to generate and code these further representations of the VXML application.